(would you) stay with me, my enemy
by Shadows of a Dream
Summary: "His eyes don't know how to lie, but every day he lies to himself. Ben Solo is not good, but he is real." Exploration of Rey/Kylo as a toxic dynamic. Rey is a Kenobi. Character study, AU to my other TFA fics.
**A/N:** Unlike my other fics, this is a standalone AU in which Rey is a Kenobi. I really believe she is a Skywalker and that she'll be with Finn (see my other fics,) but I wanted to explore the Rey/Kylo dynamic, and I unequivocally will not write incest.

My primary issue with Rey/Kylo that prevents me from shipping it is the romanticization of its unhealthy aspects. Kylo invaded her mind without permission. He kills his father, who is her father figure. He tries to manipulate her. But especially given the Rey/Bastila Force Bond from the KOTOR games, I wanted to play with the concept of a villain whose connection with the hero forces her to confront the darker aspects of herself.

So in short, my version of Reylo is more toxic than romantic, but here are my thoughts on it in a hopefully prosaic fashion. Here's to deep, complex characters with dark sides that won't leave me alone.

 **(would you) stay with me, my enemy**

 _Everyone leaves,_ Rey tells herself. The traitor who unbraids her hair while she sleeps may very well have vanished when she wakes. The pilot who calls her an inspiration will call her a conquest if she calls him the same. The droids at her service will be spare parts one day. Her parents, if ever they return, will be dust before her lifespan is spent.

 _Everyone leaves,_ Rey tells herself. As a familiar voice disturbs her sleep, she is forced to add, _Except for you._

As a shadow is irrevocably stitched to her body, so is Rey's enemy ever-present in her mind, worst of all in its sleeping state. Ben Solo's inversion of potential power stalks her steps, promising a lighted path, even while he can only toy with sparks. It is, all the same, an offer than tempts.

Nights are dark on an island alone, where Rey sprawls out under the pale moon, watching her breath plume in delicate clouds that arch towards the stars before vanishing in an instant. Sometimes she traces the stars with an upraised hand in the dark. Sometimes the little lights weave into a familiar face that still hovers, coolly observant, behind her closed eyes.

The obsidian sky weights heavily, and on those nights, Rey would settle for sparks. She would claw for even the faintest light when the world yawns so gigantic around her – like she's balanced above a rancor's mouth, always braced for the impending fall.

When their swords clash in her dreams, roaring almost as loudly as her heartbeat, the same terror sweeps through her every time, thrilling in its purity. When she sees crimson and azure alike reflected in the dilated spheres of his pupils, every time, her stomach gives a wild lurch.

When she bows low before Skywalker, she calls him _Master_ but never _Teacher_ , and when he leaves scars and burns all over her arms and legs from training, they are warnings, not promises, born of desperate distrust and not feverish hope. In her dreams, though, the dark echo of her tortured soul draws his sizzling sword and hacks the chair that once confined her to useless pieces. Ben Solo has no need of an ocean to surround her, or chains to bind her, or vague assurances of a brighter tomorrow to draw her near; he trusts her to stay.

Rey has never trusted anyone.

Never daring to trust is so very exhausting.

The Sith's opposition is consistent, his resistance unwavering, and maybe Rey can't trust anyone to hold her hand, but she can trust this impossible boy to try and hold her back from all that she might be in his absence. She is drunk on the challenge. There are parts of her that violently long for opposition, to prove herself to herself, over and over again. In truth, she rather have a rival than a lover, because allegiance aches when its source flees, but hatred pursues like a wolfhound.

Rey will never stop running, but she could adjust to someone willing to keep pace.

There are parts of her that leap frantically out of her dreams when the last Sith apprentice leans in close, closer, then close enough to drink in every breath she breathes out. But there are parts of her that tremble – parts of her that she wants to hate, but cannot – that wish she would instead thread her fingers through his hair, and bring their lips tentatively together.

Ben Solo is not kind but honest, not heroic but ambitious, yet his cruelty is dependable, his arrogance a mere farce: a failing attempt to cloak a boy abandoned, desolate, like the girl Rey buries beneath muscle and retorts. His eyes don't know how to lie, but every day he lies to himself. Ben Solo is not good, but he is real. He is terribly, inescapable human, a startling tide of emotions unleashed. He spills blood because his heart is bleeding, and somehow he has found the fortitude to embrace it, while all Rey's bruises are deep beneath her skin.

Rey has always been alone. She knows, somehow, that the day this brilliant boy's fingers first brushed the darkness, everyone he ever loved turned away, and all he had left was himself and the vain promise of power.

Rey thinks she wouldn't mind being alone together. Of that thought, she is terrified.

But she has been terrified since her first night alone in the desert, and fear is so much easier than when Finn holds her close to himself – fingers closing around her tattered robes and battered skin, eyes fluttering shut in her embrace, breaths steady and strong against her chest, a rhythm like sleep – because those are the moments when she dares to feel safe.

For Rey, safety is alien. Fear may be a shelter close to collapsing, rain leaking through the roof, the screams beyond clearly heard through its thin walls, but home is the place that knows you the best, and Rey has slept in the shadow of terror for more nights than she can count. Fear is cold and uncomfortable, but it clings to her like a wet tunic. Fear is home.

When she countered the trespassing of Ben Solo on Starkiller Base, when she pried into the forbidden caverns of his thoughts, she saw he was afraid. And she saw herself.

 _Everyone leaves,_ Rey thought, when she left his broken body to stain the snow scarlet.

But when Ben Solo glides into her dreams, alarmingly honest, willing to pledge himself _teacher_ if only she be branded _student,_ sometimes she takes his hand in hers, and his skin is like snowflakes but his pulse is warm, and she can see the ghosts of tears, unshed, before he shuts his eyes and calls her _enemy._

 _Enemy_ , she whispers back, lost in the rush of possibility.

Enemies, not friends, might stay.


End file.
